User blog:CasInTheHat/Creating tutorial slides using GIMP
There are a few tutorials on Dillo Hills 2 Wikia and (hopefully!) more is going to come. Most of them use slideshows to present a list of steps to achieve certain goal, which should not be a surprise - it is a way easier to create slides than record a good video! I've recently posted on Dillo Hills 2 Wikia Forum some tips how to create such slides, but due to a limited space (c'mon, a forum post should not be longer than two screens!) it was too condensed. Thence the idea to describe it here! The big picture So... what do we need to create slideshows? Definitely, we need to take screenshots, but that's not all! We will have to modify the screenshots to be useful. This means, we want to do the following things. # Enhance important parts of the screenshots. My way to do this: darken all that is not so important, leaving the important things with the original brightness. # Add text explaining the important parts and connecting lines. I decided to use white font with black outline and light blue glow around. Sounds funny, right? I'm pretty sure you can do it using MS Paint, but there are much better tools. Personally, I like GIMP, a free open-source analogue of Photoshop, which can be installed on both Windows and Unix-based systems. Oh, you're using MacOS? Then I'm sorry, but you will have find the tool on your own. GIMP is a very sophisticated program, and we will use a number of tools to create our slides. Make sure you have opened the following dockable windows: # toolbox (Windows → Toolbox or Ctrl+B), # tool options (Windows → Dockable Dialogs → Tool Options), and # layers (Windows → Dockable Dialogs → Layers or Ctrl+L). The last one has a few tabs, of which we shall use Layers and Paths. After all the windows are opened, you should see something like this: Creating slides Step 1: Taking screenshots Now we can begin. I assume you have already chosen what the tutorial should be about — for the purpose of this post I decided to make a tutorial about promoting a character. So... what to do first? First, I had to decide which screenshots I need for my slides. The more the better — you can delete the unnecessary ones, but you may not be able to recreate those that are missing. Because promoting requires a fully upgraded character, I decided to start with a not fully upgraded one, to show what happens after all stats are maxed out. Then I documented each step of the process. This is the list of screenshots taken by me: # A character with all stats maxed out except two. Because promoting gives you a special pack, I'd opened all packs I had before taking the screenshot, so that the top right corner of the screen is empty. # A fully upgraded character. # A confirmation page — it appear after clicking the green promoting button. # A character with reseted stats after promoting it. Before I made the screenshot, I waited till the prestige token is shown. Because I had none before, exactly one prestige token is visible on the screenshot. # A screenshot with the promotion pack, visible after cliking open packs. I tried later to get some screenshots from opening the pack, but it was going too fast. Anyway, I decided that the five about were just enough. Otherwise, I would have to repeat the process. After taking the first screenshot you can use it immediately to create a new project in GIMP: File → Create → From Clipboard (or Ctrl+Shift+V). It will create a new file with one layer — your screenshot. You can now add the other screenshots by pasting them directly to the GIMP. Notice, that each time you paste a new screenshot, it is not paste directly on the visible layer, but a temporary layer, called Floating Selection, is created. Create a new permanent layer from it by clicking the white rectangle in the bottom left corner. After you added all the screenshots, it is a time to crop them. For that use the rectangular selection tool and select the game window only. This rectangle can be modified once created, so you do not have to be precise at the very beginning. My way to do this is to draw any rectangle close enough to what I want to have, zoom the picture to 400%, and then fix two corners. Now it is the time to crop all the layer to the selection: Image → Crop to Selection. If you haven't moved the game window between the screenshots, this should crop all of them in the right way. Step 2: Darkeners Once the screenshots are added to the GIMP file, it is the time to darken them. For that we need a half-transparent balck layer over each screenshot. Best way to do this is to create one new black layer (press the white rectangle on the Layer window and fill the layer with a black color) and set its opacity to about 67%. You can then copy it (5th button from the left in the Layer window) as many times as you need. Use the green arrows in the Layer window to place the darkening layers in right places. After each screenshot has its darkener, it is a time to dig holes. Hide all the layer except the screenshot and its darkener you want to work on. Use one of the selection tools (ellipse and lasso are nice) to select the part of the darkener to erase. However, soften the selection before erasing the region (Selection → Soften) — by a small value, like 2px, if you selected the exact element, and by a big one, like 50px, if a region around it. In the following screenshot I selected the character using an elliptic selection softened at 50px, and the stat bars with using lasso softened at 2px. Step 3: Adding text OK. We have now screenshots and darkeners. The next step it to add text. Although it looks more complicated, this step is much easier and less time-consuming than the previous one. In what follows I show how to add text to one slide. First, create one black layer covering the whole image and put it below all other layers. You will use it to create the black outline of the font and the blue glow. Next, create a transparent layer over the darkener. It will contain the describing texts and pointing lines. Now it's time to add the text. Select the transparent layer in the Layer and select the text tool. In the tool options set the following values: * Font: Rumpelstiltskin * Size: 62px * Color: white * Letter distance: -4 Click any place on the image and start typing. You can move the text later to another position if you want. I also change the size of the spacing between words by manually setting it to -6 or -7 for each space (notice the small window next to the text area). After adding descriptions, the next step is to draw connecting lines. For that I use the path tool: to create a straight path (the endpoints can be adjusted after the path is created), and then to stroke a white line of width 3px (Stroke button in Tool options window). The paths are drawn on the transparent layer placed just before the darkener. When the text is well positioned, merge it to the transparent layer (Layer → Merge down). You will no longer be able to modify it, so be certain there is nothing you would like to change! At this moment the text is totally white and it does not look very nice. We shall now create the black outline for it. # Choose the Color Selection tool and click on any white pixel of the text. It will select all the text and connecting lines. # Grow the selection by 2px (Select → Grow...) and soften by 1px (Select → Soften...). # Now make the black layer active, press Ctrl+C and then Ctrl+V. It creates a temporary layer Floating Section. Create a new layer from it — the white text will be now covered as you can see blow. Do not worry about it. After you move this new layer below the layer with the text, everything looks normal. Finally, for the blue glow keep the layer with black outline select and choose Filters → Light and Shadow → Drop Shadow.... Use the following parameters: * Offset x: 0px * Offset y: 0px * Radius: 30px * Color: 22ddff * Opacity: 100 and press OK. The blue grow is created underneath the black outline. The final step is merge the three layers: the white text, the black outline, and the blue glow. Before that I also blur the outline to make it less sharp (Filters → Blur → Gaussian Blur... with both sizes set to 1px). Eventually, I got the following image: Step 4: Exporting slides At this point your slides are almost ready! What remains is to export them to JPEG files. Remember, that each slide in your project is a combination of three layers: # the screenshot, # the darkening layer, and # the text layer. Make the three layers visible (and hide all the others) and choose File → Export ... (or press Ctrl+Shift+E). Choose its name with the extension .jpg — GIMP will immediately realize the format. Choose a compression between 90-95 and voua la! You have a slide! Creating the slideshow on the wikia When your slides are ready, it is a time to add them to the tutorial article! For that simply click the button slideshow to the right of the editor and follow the instructions. Category:Blog posts